Please revert Xorg decision to disable Ctrl-Alt-Backspace

[Gerry Reno]

Corbin Simpson wrote:
> Gerry Reno wrote:
>   
>> Dear Xorg community,
>>   In reading the Release Notes for the Alpha version of Fedora 11 I 
>> noticed a very disturbing change involving disabling the default 
>> Ctrl-Alt-Backspace behavior of killing the X server.  This default 
>> behavior has been able to be counted on by sysadmins for years as a 
>> means of controlling the X server.  It is now part of a sysadmins DNA.  
>> This default behavior is also relied upon by many tools especially 
>> virtualization tools which have Ctrl-Alt-Backspace embedded in their 
>> menu options and functions for controlling a virtual machines behavior.
>>
>>   I read in the Fedora Release Notes the assertions that this change was 
>> due to users complaining about confusion regarding the control key 
>> sequences relating to the X server.  That argument was no doubt made by 
>> some in the Emacs community who find that the Emacs key sequences are 
>> similar to the Xorg sequences.  I will tell you that this argument about 
>> confusion is totally bogus from an entire Linux community standpoint.  
>> The Emacs community is miniscule in size comparison to the overall Linux 
>> community.  In over thirty years of working with *nix systems and 
>> thousands of users and machines not once has a user ever complained 
>> about confusion or problems involving the Ctrl-Alt-Backspace key 
>> combination.  I am concerned because it appears that a tiny minority of 
>> Emac users have managed to lobby for a very significant change in 
>> default behavior for X server control to the detriment of the majority 
>> of users and administrators in the Linux community.  Already there are a 
>> number of angry threads popping up around the internet related to this 
>> issue.  Please look at this particular thread that I started in the 
>> Fedora Development forum:  http://marc.info/?t=123818605400006&r=2&w=2
>>
>>   I am asking Xorg to immediately reconsider its decision with respect 
>> to this change in default behavior regarding Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.  Please 
>> revert this change.
>>     
>
>
> Two things. First, I hate Emacs too. Second, you can disable the DontZap
> server flag in xorg.conf with something like:
>
> Section "ServerFlags"
> Option "DontZap" "false"
> EndSection
>
> ~ C.
>
>   
Yes, this was all discussed in the thread.   Of course you can put 
things in xorg.conf.  So revert this huge change and let the relatively 
small community of Emacs users put whatever they need in xorg.conf and 
thereby you don't end up changing default behavior for the entire 
overall Linux community and that has been counted on by users and 
sysadmins for near forever.

Regards,
Gerry

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